The Wife

Great acting in a drama that somewhat
loses its distinction.

Jonathan
Pryce and Glenn Close

The
opening scenes of this film are very impressive suggesting that we
might have here an intelligent work for thoughtful audiences on a par
with the splendid but in some quarters underrated Denial
(2016) which took as its subject those who deny the Holocaust. The
issues here are not as serious as that but The Wife
is a drama, one that is centered on a marriage that only outwardly
looks to be a happy one. The titular figure is Joan (Glenn Close). For
many years she has been married to an author, Joe Castleman (Jonathan
Pryce), and as the film opens, Joe learns that he has been awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature. They have two adult children, David (Max
Irons), who wishes to follow in his father's footsteps as a writer, and
Susannah (Alix Wilton Regan) who will soon become a mother herself.
Most of the film take place in Stockholm as the day of the ceremony
approaches with Joe ready to declare in his speech of thanks how much
he owes to his wife. Yet, as we will discover both through plot
developments and through flashbacks to the couple's earlier life, the
reality behind the marriage and the part that Joan has played in her
husband's career are quite different from the public's perception of
them.

It
is immediately apparent that the casting is perfect. Close conveys so
much through her facial expressions and she and Pryce (the latter
playing an American literary figure for the second time following his
role in 2014's Listen
Up Philip) relish the opportunities offered by a literate
screenplay, one not afraid in this context to quote from James Joyce's The Dead.
The writing is less adept in the somewhat underdeveloped sub-plot
concerning the tensions between father and son but it functions well
when it comes to the other significant character in the story,
Nathaniel Bone. The latter is a man who, having been rejected by Joe as
his biographer, is now out to expose Joan's importance in Joe's career.
This is a role that finds Christian Slater on top form reminding one of
the slimy press agent played so brilliantly by Tony Curtis in the 1957
classic Sweet Smell of
Success.

The
direction by Björn Runge is not in itself of special distinction, but
that matters not a jot when the quality of the acting is this high.
Somewhat ironically, it is the quality of this piece as so quickly
established that makes the final scenes seem by comparison to belong to
the world of popular fiction. It is not only the Scandinavian
setting that encourages one to feel that the climax looks set to echo
Ibsen's A Doll's House
but it
ends up closer to the kind of contrived material often found in
melodramas. That may be to overstate the case and my rating above is
arguably on the harsh side. Nevertheless, The Wife
promises so much that one can't but be disappointed when, in contrast
to Denial,
its climactic scenes fail to maintain the very high standard
that has been set. But, given the pleasure provided by three
distinguished performances, it is well worth seeing.